Texts that closely reflect an individual reader's vocabulary and comprehension
level offer the potential to provide stronger support for the development of the
reader's reading comprehension and vocabulary growth. But classroom teachers seldom
have the time to individualize the selection of reading materials for each of
the students in their classes. The purpose of this project is to develop a computerized
web-based search engine to support an instructional strategy designed to increase
students' vocabulary knowledge and improve reading comprehension by enabling students
to select passages from across the Internet on topics of interest which also meet
specific standards of reading difficulty and content of unfamiliar vocabulary.
As students use the search engine, it builds a model of the individual student's
level of acquisition and fluency for each word, producing an individualized framework
for selecting reading materials that will strengthen that student's reading comprehension.

The researchers are carrying out three studies in the process of developing
the search engine, two of which involve university students and one of which involves
students in the third through sixth grades. The first study involves adults reading
texts in three different topic areas (business, arts and leisure, and sports)
and three levels of different percentages of unfamiliar words, to measure the
effects of these differences on reading times, comprehension, and readers' ability
to infer word meanings, assessments of difficulty, and degree of interest. The
second study involves students reading texts chosen according to the search engine's
criteria for gauging their reading difficulty and taking into account the individual
readers' degree of familiarity with the vocabulary, to evaluate the feasibility
of individualized text selection using materials drawn from the web. In the third
study, the researchers are having students in grades three through six use the
search engine to select and practice reading with materials selected from the
web that reflect increasing levels of difficulty in the vocabulary words included
in the texts, and measuring the development of their reading comprehension.

Florida State University
Principal Investigator: Richard WagnerOrigins of individual and developmental differences in reading comprehension

Current assessment measures of students' reading comprehension are good for
the purpose of evaluating how well students read compared to their classmates
and grade level, but they are not especially well-suited to explain why students
are performing at a given level, and what kind of instruction might serve to improve
it. The purpose of the project is to develop knowledge to guide the development
of measures of reading comprehension designed to identify the source of problems
in reading comprehension, and guide instructional practices.

The researchers are carrying out five studies of the sources of individual
and developmental differences in reading comprehension with students in the second
and fourth grades. The first two studies are designed to test different models
of the possible sources of individual and developmental differences in students'
reading comprehension. The researchers are collecting student performance data
on reading tests over a three-year period of time and using statistical analyses
to investigate the relationships among such characteristics as students' vocabulary,
working memory of what they're just read or heard, awareness of how words are
formed, and ability to 'decode' (i.e., to recognize and read words by translating
the letters into speech sounds to determine the word's pronunciation and meaning).
In the third and fourth studies, the researchers are carrying out two experiments
in which the instruction of different groups of students focuses on the improvement
of one or more of these student characteristics of decoding and vocabulary, in
order to study how training in one characteristic leads to changes in the other
characteristics and in overall reading comprehension. In the fifth study, the
researchers are examining different kinds of measures of reading comprehension
by comparing traditional published reading comprehension tests with tests that
more closely resemble the material that students normally read in class, and with
a new test that focuses on students' comprehension of specific passages of reading
material, to explore the tests' potential for identifying the sources and solutions
to problems in student progress in reading comprehension.

The ability to read materials that are primarily intended to convey information
is key to success in school, in the workplace, and in the community. Research
suggests that students' lack of exposure to and instruction in such expository
texts slows their progress in reading as they progress through the fourth grade
and beyond, and that a lack of understanding of the structures of such texts frequently
contributes to their difficulties. The purpose of this project is to develop and
evaluate instruction designed to improve students' knowledge and use of expository
text structures before they reach fourth grade, so that they are better prepared
to comprehend the expository text in the content textbooks they will encounter
as they progress through school.

The researcher is carrying out three studies designed to examine the effects
of integrating explicit instruction about text structures into regular teaching,
in classrooms of second grade students of mixed abilities in urban schools with
large proportions of minority students. The first study focuses on compare/contrast
text structures, using content drawn from the social studies. Classrooms of students
are randomly assigned to receive instruction according to one of three different
approaches: 1) instruction in which explicit instruction about the compare/contrast
text structure is embedded into the social studies content; 2) instruction using
the same reading materials as in the first approach, except without the emphasis
on the compare/contrast text structure; or, 3) instruction unaltered from the
teachers' normal educational practice. The second study uses the same design,
except that it focuses on instruction in cause/effect text structures rather than
compare/contrast structures. The third study also uses the same design, but incorporates
instruction in both compare/contrast and cause/effect text structures. The researcher
is comparing student performance from the various groups of students using a variety
of measures designed to assess their learning of both the content and their understanding
of the text structures, and then using the data to further revise and improve
the most effective instructional approaches.

The Pennsylvania State University
Principal Investigator: Bonnie MeyerIntelligent tutoring using the structure strategy to improve reading comprehension
of middle school students

Learning to read is fundamental to learning and life-time success. Some students
have difficulties understanding what they read, not because they can't read at
all, but because of how they read. The purpose of this project is to develop and
test the efficacy of various features of a web-based intelligent tutor designed
to teach middle school students who are struggling readers how to use the structure
of the text to help them understand what they are reading. Students are taught
to recognize common organizational structures used in expository texts (such as
comparison, problem/solution, cause/effect, sequence, description, or listing)
and how to use those structures to help them identify the main ideas in expository
texts.

The researchers are carrying out three studies of various features of the web-based
tutor, with fifth and seventh grade students from four diverse school districts
serving suburban or rural communities that include minority and low-income families.
The researchers are developing and pilot testing the web-based tutor in the project's
first year. Following that, in the first study students are randomly assigned
to use the tutor programmed to provide either simple or more advanced responses
to their input, and either with or without the option of being able to choose
what passages they practice their reading on. In the second study the researchers
are interviewing students to discover how well they understand the structure strategy.
In the third study, students are being randomly assigned either to a group whose
use of the tutor is programmed to adjust to the individual student's learning
progress, or to a group with a tutor that delivers the standard intelligent tutoring
of the structure strategy.

Research indicates that while vocabulary knowledge plays an important role
in the reading process and reading comprehension, little is known about how to
teach vocabulary effectively. Evidence also shows that a gap in vocabulary knowledge
emerges between at-risk students and their peers before they enter kindergarten,
and grows larger in the early grades. The goal of this project is to develop and
evaluate strategies for teaching vocabulary to young children at risk of experiencing
reading difficulties. The project researchers are developing, implementing, and
evaluating strategies designed to improve the vocabulary knowledge of at-risk
urban first graders.

In the first phase of this three phase project, the researchers are performing
experiments to develop, field-test, and refine vocabulary instructional strategies
with small groups of students. In the second phase, they are evaluating the efficacy
of those vocabulary instructional strategies by comparing student learning in
first grade classrooms randomly assigned to use either explicit vocabulary instruction
inserted into storybook reading activities or traditional storybook reading activities.
In the third phase, the researchers are repeating the second phase study in a
wider range of diverse classroom settings. The research team is also training
classroom teachers from urban schools serving a high percentage of students from
diverse ethnic backgrounds to implement the vocabulary intervention strategies.
The project is designed to test the feasibility of having classroom teachers implement
and sustain the use of effective vocabulary instruction under real conditions.

University of Illinois
Principal Investigator: Richard AndersonImproving comprehension and writing through reasoned argumentation

While learning how to use various argument strategies is an integral element
of education across the curriculum, existing research has not yet identified the
most effective ways of doing so. The purpose of this project is to evaluate Collaborative
Reasoning, an education intervention using intellectually engaging classroom discussion
to improve children's ability to comprehend, evaluate, and produce arguments.
In Collaborative Reasoning, students take positions on issues in texts they read,
provide reasons to support their positions, cite text information and background
knowledge as evidence, challenge other children when they disagree, and respond
to the challenges of others. The researchers are measuring the effects of student
participation in this activity on learning.

The researchers are comparing the effects of student participation in classrooms
where Collaborative Reasoning is introduced with classrooms continuing to carry
out their normal educational practices. Pairs of fourth and fifth grade classrooms
of students with similar backgrounds are being randomly assigned to have one classroom
initiate Collaborative Reasoning while the other classroom continues as before.
The study sample includes 32 fourth- and fifth-grade teachers and approximately
1,400 children attending rural and urban schools serving families with a variety
of income levels and a diversity of racial and ethnic backgrounds. The researchers
are measuring and analyzing student performance using a variety of outcome measures,
including the number of satisfactory arguments, counter arguments, rebuttals,
uses of text evidence, and the uses of argument stratagems in students' written
essays; their responses to questions on a standardized reading test; a test of
critical thinking ability; and, interviews in which students rate their own interest
in reasoning and argument, and express a preference for either collaborative reasoning
or conventional classroom discussion.

Levels of student proficiency in reading comprehension in the United States
remain low, and there is little evidence to suggest any increase is occurring
in the use of effective instruction in reading comprehension. Research has established
the efficacy of several approaches to teaching reading comprehension, but little
is known about why these approaches work, and teachers find it difficult to actually
implement effective approaches in their teaching. The purpose of this study is
to develop and evaluate teacher-implemented strategies for reading comprehension
instruction based on two established general approaches, and then to combine the
positive features of the strategies of both approaches into a comprehensive model
of instruction.

The researchers are carrying out this three phase project with second and fourth
grade teachers and their classrooms in four school districts serving different
populations of students, one of which includes a substantial portion of students
whose first language is Spanish. In the first phase, the researchers are working
with second and fourth grade teachers to develop and implement teaching strategies
using two different approaches. In the first approach, called cognitive strategies,
the emphasis is on teaching students to carry out specific operations with the
material they are reading, such as questioning, clarifying, summarizing, or reacting
to what they read. In the second approach, called cognitive engagement,
the teacher uses questions to encourage students to think about various features
of what they are reading, in order to strengthen their intellectual grasp of the
material. In the second phase the researchers are formally evaluating the effects
of teachers' use of these two approaches, by randomly assigning teachers in 2nd
and 4th grade classrooms in participating schools into three groups of classrooms
using cognitive strategies, cognitive engagement, or continuing to teach as they
had before. In the third year, the researchers are using the results of the prior
study to synthesize the two approaches into a more comprehensive model and then
testing the effects of the synthesized approach in comparison with normal teaching
practices.